


Holding Onto Gravity

by flailingthroughsanity



Series: quantum mechanics [1]
Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Coming of Age, Introspection, M/M, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-10 10:08:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5581666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flailingthroughsanity/pseuds/flailingthroughsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Myungsoo thinks — that perhaps, all along, they’ve never really understood what they lived through, or felt as if they’ve had enough time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily based off Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go".

 

The footfalls are strangely heavy.  
I feel as if I sense  
the weight of the air.  
As if the entirety of the  
world’s gravity sojourns in me.  
  - _Holding Onto Gravity_ , Nell

∞

The waters were receding, and the sand trails in their wake. A cold breeze sweeps through the plains, and Myungsoo’s eyes sting. He blinks, brings a hand to rub the itch away. In the distance, the cackling of ducks carries over the ebb and flow of the sea. There is salt in the wind, and it caresses his skin.

He feels dry — a little sweaty, a little uncomfortable but he doesn’t really dwell much over it. For some reason, something he couldn’t really put his mind to, it feels wonderful — the dryness. He’s always been a neat person, found it refreshing to be clean of sweat and smell, but the saltiness pulls a sense of warmth in him, warmth he hasn’t felt in a really long time.

The sound of the ducks, the rolling of the waves against the banks, the feel of the seawater curling around his toes, the smoothness of the sand under his feet, the saltiness in the air.

Myungsoo closes his eyes.

He starts to see it now. He sees the once-beige façade, weathered by rain and hail. The sea is more distant, and the spaces between are covered with the endless green of the plains. The ducks’ cries dull as the chatter of prepubescent children fill the air.

He sees them. He sees their smiles, hears their voices. They call out to him.

_Myungsoo! Myungsoo!_

Myungsoo smiles, eyes closed, it was like coming home.

∞

Woollim had been home to Myungsoo ever since he was old enough to understand what the word meant. He can still remember the ever-green plains, the grass high enough to tickle his ankles if he didn’t pull his socks high enough. He remembers running through them, felt the harmless swish of the grass against his skin. There was a certain sense of longing in the possibility of so much infinity, in the never ending fields of green before him. He remembers himself, thirteen years old, remembers the joy of the expanse — so much expanse, so much infinity.

“Race you back to the foyer?” A voice breaks through his thirteen year old thoughts, and Myungsoo turns to see Howon grin at him, and there was a trace of competition across his lips.

He remembers Howon.

He remembers the shorter boy, with a smile sharp enough that belied the silver of his tongue. Howon was fourteen, then. He was bulkier than Myungsoo, and he loved the physical classes more than what Myungsoo could ever appreciate them for — his tan skin no longer a stranger to the sunlight, to the occasional chill of the breeze, to the dirt that clung as Howon runs and rolls across the  fields.

Myungsoo doesn’t really like running — but he really likes to compete, and before Howon knows, he’s sprinting ahead. Howon shouts, screams that he’s a loser, and Myungsoo laughs as Howon runs to catch up with him. He sees his other schoolmates, the girls looking to them at the sound of the commotion, the boys cheering them on. Myungsoo and Howon’s names echo into the dark grey sky, punctuated by reprimands of the guardians and Myungsoo hurtles up the stone steps and his knees burn as he drops to the wooden panels of the foyer, Howon’s figure crashing into him.

He remembers the pain ghosting the exhilaration and the heaviness of his breathing, half-laughing and half-groaning as he slumps on the floor and Howon’s above him, no better.

The cheers of the other students trail in the distance and Myungsoo grumps as he pushes Howon away, and the other boy rolls over to lie on the ground. Sweat clings to Howon’s skin, and his hair sticks to his forehead in clumps and there’s a wide grin on his face.

“You suck.” Howon growls, although the ferocity of his voice is forgotten in the upward tilt of his lips. Myungsoo laughs in between his pants.

“The two of you are idiots.” A new voice interrupts, and they both look up to Sunggyu standing over them, frowning.

“You’re just jealous you can’t run as fast as we can.” Myungsoo retorts and he laughs again as Sunggyu kicks his arm. Howon cracks a jibe at Sunggyu and the oldest of the three crouches and pulls Howon’s hair in a tightlock.

“Ow, ow, ow — hyung, let go!” Howon complains, trying to disentangle Sunggyu’s fingers from his hair and failing. His face is scrunched in annoyance. Myungsoo just laughs.

Later, one of the guardians — Mr. Nam — appear and, upon seeing Myungsoo’s bruised knees, Howon’s gashed elbow and Sunggyu pulling his hair, shouts at them in anger and sends them to detention.

And while they’re repeatedly writing _‘I promise to obey the house rules of Woollim, to uphold the integrity of her students and to be men and women of goodwill._ ’ on their tenth sheet of paper, Sunggyu and Howon are still bickering and Myungsoo continues to smile at his two bestfriends’ nonsense.

∞

Perhaps. Perhaps, Myungsoo should have held tighter. Perhaps they all should have held tighter. Had they known what was to come, perhaps they’d realize sooner how much they’d soon lose.

∞

The director of Woollim — Mr. Lee Jungyeop — opens the morning assembly. Myungsoo remembers Mr. Lee — remembers his kind smile, the faint lines of age under his eyes, the shape of his brows as if hackles in flight. There was something about Mr. Lee, something warm. Then, Myungsoo could never understand what it was: was it his eyes, always looking into you as if he knows each stratum of your soul? Was it his smile, encouraging, generous, perhaps even a tad warmer, and a tad more loving? Was it the way he seems to know each and every one of the students, as if they were each someone he held dear to him?

Now, he realizes, sees it for what it was back then — sympathy. Pity.

But back when he was still thirteen, still naïve and gullible of the real world, he remembers Mr. Lee, standing at the podium, and he looks towards the students of Woollim, as if he’s looking into each and every one of them.

He opens his address, and he looks to Myungsoo, Howon and Sunggyu — sitting side-by-side on the left half of the hall — and he speaks of three boys who found it amusing to injure themselves while playing. A few faces turn to look at the three of them, and Myungsoo can feel the redness of his ears and beside him, Sunggyu is slightly swaying from foot to foot and he can feel the heat of embarrassment from him. He doesn’t want to turn his head to look at Howon on Sunggyu’s other side, but he can imagine the older boy looking down on his shoes. Mr. Lee continues, warning them against such rough behaviour, and he ends the address…as he always does:

“Students of Woollim are special. Remember that.”

∞

Woollim’s students are special. They were raised in the school’s beige-colored halls, grew up in the wooden floors and the dark ceilings of the dormitories, befriended one another as they bid each goodnight, climbing under the blankets and looking past the beds lined together in the sleeping quarters.

Classes were taught by the guardians — History by Mr. Lee Sungyeol, lanky and with a wide smile; literature with Mr. Nam Woohyun, who was more irritable than not, always looking for an excuse to send any of his students to detention. There was Arts with Mr. Lee Sungjong, who loved drama and it was almost everyone’s favorite class, where they all could pretend to be anything, and anyone, they could ever want to be; and there was Sports with Mr. Jang Dongwoo, and his booming laughter and bright disposition meant each student coming back to Woollim exhausted and ecstatic.

They were the guardians, and it always seemed to Myungsoo (even then) how they seemed to age with Woollim, as if they were its eternal retainers. He recalls the lessons changing as the seasons pass, and he recalls how difficult they become but one thing always remained: the guardians were always the same.

Even when Mr. Jang’s laughter slowly faded as the years went by, as the lines under Mr. Nam’s eyes grow darker and deeper, as Mr. Lee’s dramas turned darker and somber. They were always the same, they were eternal.

Myungsoo realizes now that they were Woollim, that the foundations of the school that was his home, Howon’s home, Sunggyu’s home — theirs — was built on the souls of their guardians.

∞

That spark of realization didn’t really surface when Myungsoo was where he is now. No, that tiny flame was lit on that cold, rainy day in November, when he was still thirteen — it was the first crack in the glass of his childhood innocence, of his naiveté and the idyllic dream he had painted. It all began on that cold November day, and it was Mr. Nam who had cast the first stone.

They were going through Shakespeare, the old great, and Myungsoo was taking down notes, trying not to look too much at Howon, who was barely keeping his eyes open as Mr. Nam droned on about Titus Andronicus. Sunggyu-hyung was a few seats further, and Myungsoo remembered seeing him tense very five seconds as Mr. Nam continued. Sunggyu had always hated Titus Andronicus, found the work extremely unenlightened and uninspired. Myungsoo kept quiet, but he begged to differ.

Titus was the story of revenge, of righting wrongs by fighting bloody murder with bloody murder and Myungsoo had always found it terribly fascinating. There was a weird, indescribable appreciation he felt for the tragedy’s deeply violent nature. A dark, macabre outlook on the human frailty of life — what it meant to be human, to be alive and to know what it felt to die. Looking back, perhaps it was a sign. Or perhaps it was just the start of an epiphany on the life he was heading to.

The life they were all heading to.

But like glass, it was all meant to break, and Mr. Nam had started the spider-web to breaking.

He had stopped during the discussion, his voice cut short, and Myungsoo remembered him ending it right before Bassianus is killed and Lavinia is raped and her hands cut off. The wind was pushing fast and hard against the glass panes that day, and every almost-silent thump was like a ticking of a clock that never seemed to disappear. It shone like a bright light to Myungsoo now, how the thumping of the wind was like a creaking prelude to a tragedy. Metaphors have always been written, to undermine what was truly horrible, or incredibly true and to replace them with a burgeoning fascination of romanticism. Metaphors hid the ugly nature of reality; and at times, they herald its dawning realization.

Mr. Nam cleared his throat, and the silence that had followed drew a cold chill into the room — a chill that not even the rain could bring — and Howon had sat up, eyes wide awake as Myungsoo settled his pen beside his notebook. Sunggyu doesn’t even tense when he looks up, straight into Mr. Nam’s eyes. It’s a chill of certainty — that pervading cold that freezes even your guts; a chill of fear.

Mr. Nam faced them, and for a moment, Myungsoo had been surprised to see him. In his memory, even now, Mr. Nam was this passionate teacher, brimming with life, a tongue ready to lash at the slightest negligence, yet ready to praise at the slightest diligence. It was a trait that made Mr. Nam both so feared and respected; the so-called disciplinarian of Woollim’s children; yet the same man many came to when they needed a listening ear, a patient shoulder or an accepting, understanding smile. Mr. Nam had grown older, and the circles under his eyes were darker than ever, and his hair had looked dull and limp under the stormy, grey light of that November day. There was no gleam of strictness in his eyes, no look of calculation as he took in each and every one of them.

For a moment…he almost looked sad. A kind of sad that Myungsoo didn’t understand. It wasn’t the kind of sad that Minwoo looked when he failed to make that goal during Sports yesterday; or the kind of sad that Jiyeon looked when she couldn’t find her favorite notebook.

It was a deeper sadness. A kind of sadness that echoed inside Myungsoo.

Mr. Nam stepped away from the table and as he approached the tall glass windows, his footsteps echoed in the room’s silence. He cleared his throat.

“You all know that the students of Woollim are special, yes? You are the utmost special, and we teach you all we can so you can prepare yourself. For the world out there.”

There was no sound of agreement, not even a nod to show that the students had heard what Mr. Nam said. Even Sunggyu-hyung was staring unflinchingly at the expanse of Mr. Nam’s back.

“We teach you everything. Sungyeol teaches you History, even when you’ve never stepped a foot outside the gates of Woollim. I teach you literature, talk to you about Shakespeare and Poe and Kerouac and Dickens, even when you don’t know a single person outside Woollim’s walls. Sungjong makes you perform spiels and plays and Dongwoo has you running across the fields. We all try to leave with you a little more.”

The faint thumping continued, a quiet metronome.

“We teach you a lot, because the world outside Woollim is big. Bigger than anything you’ve ever known, and it can be a scary place. We teach you so you can learn, so you can be able to be by yourself…for the time when you have to say goodbye to the people you’ve called friends, _family_ , all your lives.”

Mr. Nam laughed. It was brief, quiet — almost silent — and it was as if Mr. Nam was laughing to himself, or _at_ himself, but the class had remained silent. Myungsoo had remained silent. There wasn’t anything funny. It wasn’t a kind laughter; it was frightening.

“I thought,” and Mr. Nam’s voice was different, and there was almost like a cry in his words, but he refused to turn to look at them. All they saw was his back. “I had thought that… _that_ this was best. All this time, I thought we were helping you, making your lives a little better, a little fuller. Gave you as much as we could so you’d all understand what it meant to live, to be alive, to understand what it meant to be here. _Now_.  Maybe all we did was make it worse.”

And he had said the last few words almost to himself, like a self-realization.

Another clearing of the throat, Myungsoo remembered, and Mr. Nam had turned to them and Myungsoo clearly remembers Howon’s chair squeaking as his friend’s hand tightens on the armrest. There is no sound other than the squeaking, but Myungsoo remembered feeling as if the entire class had gasped; as if the room itself cramped and it got smaller, too small to breathe.

Mr. Nam was crying. Silently.

Tears had dripped from his cheeks but he remained silent as he looked at us. His lips had not quivered; his breathing had not been erratic. It was as if the tears simply poured from his eyes and all he could do was just breathe. Breathe like it’s the only thing he’d ever known to do.

Mr. Nam had opened his mouth, and in a quiet but strong and clear voice that contradicted the tears running down his cheeks, he continued. His voice was cold, unfriendly — so unlike the Mr. Nam they all knew.

“You all know…that when you grow older, when you graduate, you will become donors. This was the purpose with which you were all made…you were all built. When you are all ready, you will be donating your vital organs…until you complete.”

No one spoke. No one knew how to react.

Mr. Nam continued.

“And when you complete…you finish your purpose. You’ve done what you were born— _made_ to do.”

Mr. Nam cleared his throat again. The class remained silent. Lavinia is raped and her tongue and hands are cut off.

“The other guardians, they do not wish for you to know this soon. But I couldn’t. I can’t. I’m so sorry, children. I’m sorry.”

∞

The next day, during the assembly, Myungsoo remembered the director telling everyone that Mr. Nam had been removed from the faculty. That was the last time they ever saw their teacher. His crying face, a cold voice and that apology dead on his lips.

∞

“Do you think what Nam said was true?” Howon had asked a few days later, lying on his bed, an ankle resting against his knee, arms behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. Sunggyu-hyung had looked up from his reading, opposite their beds, said nothing and returned to his book. His fingers had stopped turning the pages, though.

“Do you?” Howon had asked, and Myungsoo remembers his friend looking at him. He had shrugged, unwilling to voice an opinion on Mr. Nam’s unexpected confession and his equally unexpected dismissal.

“It must be, if he were to be removed from Woollim.” Sunggyu had answered for Myungsoo then, eyes still on a page that remained unmoving. “What else could it be?”

∞

The knowledge of their donations was not something kept in total secret. There had been rumors, even then, about them — donors and carers and completion. Students who graduate from Woollim would be moved to the Colonies, where they could get the chance to interact with the outside world. And when they have learned enough — enough to be ready — they will become donors. It wasn’t an honor, neither was it something horrific. It was just that — donating, and they would just keep donating until they complete.

Until their bodies give out.

Until they die.

∞

“Then, if that’s it, I’m betting that I’ll donate longer than you two losers.” Howon joked, cackling to himself. Myungsoo had blinked and he remembers seeing Sunggyu-hyung stare at Howon.

It was then that the realization of what would happen began to sink into Myungsoo’s thoughts. Soon.

Soon, it will be them.

Soon, it will be Howon, and it will be Sunggyu and then it will be him.

Looking back, Myungsoo realizes that Howon had a point. Somewhat. He laughs to himself, a little bitterly at that, and remembers Howon’s joking tone, even years later, as it is laced in sorrow as news of Sunggyu completing during his second donation reaches them.

“I told you, Soo. I’d last…longer than him.” Howon had reiterated and Myungsoo remembers how red his eyes were even as he cackled like a madman.

Myungsoo broke through his laughter. “Yeah, you did. You’re probably gonna last longer than me, too.”

Howon had stopped smiling at that. And he never smiled again since that day.

∞

Life at Woollim continued on since Mr. Nam’s dismissal, and Mr. Lee had taken over his class, backing it next to Arts. Everything went on, and the same boisterous chatter of the students, the punctuated remarks of the guardians and the occasional telling-off by the director continued to echo within Woollim’s walls. It was as if the cold wind of Mr. Nam’s words had not traipsed through its halls, as if it hadn’t left a hollowness in Woollim’s children’s hearts, a hollowness that persisted even when denied that they felt it.

But it did. Mr. Nam’s words persisted, and it was clear in the way the guardians became stricter, more observant, more attentive on Woollim’s students.

Myungsoo, Howon and Sunggyu went on with their classes, and the days turned to weeks and turned to months and turned to years, and suddenly they were eighteen. An age of ripening, the prime of their youth, and suddenly, it was no longer games and who could run the fastest that meant more to the students. Suddenly, it was about who was with who, and suddenly, the topic of sex had become a wildfire in the halls in between classes.

“Apparently, Jiyeon and Jongin almost did it in one of the rooms on the third floor, but Mr. Jang caught them.” Sunggyu-hyung had told them one day, when they were out in the field, enjoying the spring warmth.

Howon had turned to him. “What happened?”

Sunggyu shrugged. “Mr. Jang told them to stop and dress up and sent them to their classes.”

Myungsoo nodded. “It was the same thing with Minho and Sooyeon. Mr. Lee found them making out in the storage room and they were both so red, but Mr. Lee didn’t shout at them. Just told them to fix themselves and go back inside.”

The topic of sex was also something common in Woollim, although it had been treated a little weirdly. The guardians were not reticent about, in fact, they were open about it. Reproduction was a lesson inserted in some of their classes, and the guardians never failed to address the questions the students had. Myungsoo remembered Mr. Lee, the history professor, bringing a skeleton to class one day and demonstrated how sex happened between a man and a woman.

The weird thing back then was that, although the guardians were open about it and even encouraged the students to do it, when some of the couples in Woollim were caught, it was as if the guardians turned tail on their words. There were no punishments, but it was almost as if the guardians were taking measures to ensure that nothing like it happened again — had taken to patrolling the halls and corridors, and double-checking rooms.

It had been a little weird, but life at Woollim and life after Woollim had taught Myungsoo that there were things far worse.

∞

“Hey, who would you do it with?” Howon had asked distractedly, his eyes on the other students playing with a ball across the field. Myungsoo remembered Sunggyu-hyung saying something in response and he remembered Howon turning to him to smack him on the head, but what Myungsoo remembered best was how beautiful Howon’s smile was when he laughed.

Or that Sunggyu-hyung had the prettiest voice when he sang.

∞

It wasn’t something that rocked Myungsoo’s world out of orbit. In retrospect, he was a little surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Myungsoo knew he had always been closer to Howon and Sunggyu more than his other schoolmates, and that it was always either of them or one of them that he was with.

He just failed to see that what he mistook for companionship was actually the burgeoning beginnings of love. It had always been the three of them, had always been that way for as long as he remembered. He had believed, back then, that they would always be together. Nothing could tear them apart. That they would go through everything, the donations and the completing…all together.

They and Woollim were all that he knew — they were his world.

Maybe that surety, that complacency was Myungsoo’s biggest mistake. Maybe, if he had realized all along — had really understood what they would go through — he would have kept closer, kept a tighter grasp on them.

Maybe they all would have kept a tighter grasp on one another.

Because that surety had cost him what could have been a happy time in his life, no matter how short a time it would be in an equally short life. He had always thought it would be the three of them, and he was content to just let it be, let the three of them be and Myungsoo was quiet as Sunggyu and Howon had continued to bicker well into the night.

It was supposed to be the three of them and on their last day at Woollim — before they stepped out into the outside world — Sunggyu-hyung kissed Howon.

∞

Everything had begun changing on that day, and it only got worse as they moved to the Colonies. It was that period of their lives where they started learning what it meant to live outside, to live with those not from Woollim — to be among humans. In the remote outposts, Myungsoo, Sunggyu and Howon met the niche that will become their new home, with their clothes and belongings — the entirety of who they were — in duffle bags and  the three of them had stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, a little lost as they locked eyes with strangers, hailing from other schools, other homes, other Woollims. Three orphaned children, from a home that they would never see again.

In a small bungalow house, they lived with two others — Minhwa and Dongbae — and the difference between the three of them and the two others could not be any stranger. Minhwa and Dongbae hailed from Sooman, and the school was known for being more open with the outside world than Woollim. It was alright in the beginning, until Myungsoo had realized that Minhwa and Dongbae were together, and that they were more open about it than people in Woollim were.

“We’re in love,” Dongbae had spoken over dinner that night. Sunggyu-hyung and Howon locked eyes and grinned similar smiles. Myungsoo stirred his food.

And the difference was apparent. Minhwa and Dongbae introduced television, and cable and things like Netflix and YouTube and Myungsoo just stared at the blatant openness of everything being shown to them. Back in Woollim, their only contact with technology was a simple radio where they shared slots in time to play their own tapes, provided by the guardians.

On Netflix and television, Myungsoo saw naked men and women, saw them kissing, saw murder and crime and for a moment, he had thought he could have kept that feeling of fear to himself until he realized that Howon and Sunggyu were changing.

He started noticing the faint touches, the way Sunggyu-hyung trailed his fingers across Howon’s nape, started noticing the way Howon’s hands lingered around Sunggyu’s waist, started noticing how the two had taken more leisure walks than usual, and he was stuck, a little outcast in a world not of his own, watching them from the upstairs bedroom window as the two made their way into the forest beyond, holding hands and too close to be considered friends.

∞

It wasn’t that Myungsoo was jealous, or had been jealous.

Not really, he never was jealous. But he had never known what it was like to be jealous, anyway. All he knew was that Sunggyu-hyung and Howon were starting to carve their own place together, and as Myungsoo had watched Howon hide a laugh against Sunggyu-hyung’s shoulder, Myungsoo’s grasp on them could only wither slowly as they strain further, and further, and further.

∞

The Colonies were located in a forest by the borders of Seoul. Although it was never forbidden to visit the city — in fact, that was exactly the reason they were sent to the Colonies: to know what it was like to be around people. People not like them. In spite of that window of opportunity, they had never really set the time to go and visit. Perhaps it was because Minhwa and Dongbae went to Seoul by themselves most of the time, and the three chose to stay behind. Perhaps it was because Myungsoo had started feeling like the odd one out, and he had chosen to indulge himself in the chores around the house, just so he could pull up an excuse to go to the city another day. Back then, he had always told himself that the reason for his reticence was because he was afraid of getting lost.

Now, he realized it was because he was fighting hard to tighten that grasp, that faint hold, on the little, innocent world Woollim had made for him.

Until that day had came, and Myungsoo had no excuse — not when it had been something as monumental as this.

Myungsoo was in his bedroom, under the covers, a book in his hands when the door banged open, and Sunggyu-hyung entered. Myungsoo had watched Sunggyu slowly walk to his bed, and when he had sat down, Sunggyu-hyung’s face was a tad pale, but his eyes were bright and feverish and he seemed to rattle with excited energy. He seemed different, now that he’d taken the time to look at Sunggyu-hyung. His hair is styled differently, a little similar to some of those “idols” they watch on the television. Even Howon has started dressing differently.

They were all beginning to change, adapting to this unknown world — except for Myungsoo (who still fought to hold on to those grassy afternoons, sitting on plains watching thirteen-year olds run around).

There had been a frisson of anticipation in the air, even a little of fear, but when Sunggyu-hyung spoke, though his voice shook, it had rang with certain clarity.

“Soo,” Sunggyu-hyung had begun, and Myungsoo lowered his books and sat up, feeling Sunggyu-hyung’s hand patting Myungsoo’s leg in a consoling manner, although it seemed more like Sunggyu-hyung was telling himself everything was real around him.

“Soo.”

“Yeah, hyung?”

Sunggyu-hyung’s eyes were wide and shining in the afternoon light. “Dongbae was out in Seoul, and he was in Mapo-gu…and he says he found a Possible. Of me.”

Myungsoo had been shocked to silence that day.

A Possible was the person they were all made from — the original donor of the genetic data that would soon give life to them. To find one’s Possible was almost _im_ possible, yet Myungsoo had not the heart to break the fragile hope across Sunggyu-hyung’s face, but he couldn’t let Sunggyu-hyung get through this blind.

“Hyung…is Dongbae sure?”

Sunggyu had laughed and shrugged. “He’s not, said that he only saw a guy walking around that looked exactly like me, and he was in a business suit and—Soo! You know what this means, right? I could, I could get to know him—me! I could get to know me!”

Myungsoo nodded. “Yes, hyung. What about Howon?”

“He knows, they all know! Can you imagine it, Soo? Me, working as a business man! That was me!”

And in that fragile line of breakable hope, Myungsoo knew he should have broken the glass himself.

∞

A few days later, an agreement was made and they all drove down to Seoul on an early Friday morning. The drive was long, the road a little rocky but they managed to hit the outer districts by lunch and Myungsoo could only gape at the towering buildings, knew that the other two felt same, and the people rushing past the streets were like colored shadows, Myungsoo’s eyes too slow to capture every single one.

Dongbae parks the car outside a small bistro and they squeeze together into a booth, and it was a little awkward how their first (with the exception of Dongbae and Minhwa) visit to a restaurant went. The menu was simple, really: a regular diner, serving breakfast meals and coffee yet the freedom to choose what they want, coupled with how _new_ everything was around them left the three Woollim boys speechless.

It was Dongbae who had ordered first — two eggs, sunny-side up, toast and orange juice — and when it was Myungsoo’s turn, in panic, he had ordered the same thing. Only for Howon and Sunggyu-hyung to order the same thing as well. Minhwa had simply laughed and ordered same.

After they had their fill of lunch, and while waiting for the bill, Dongbae broke that lulling silence after a full meal and, holding Minhwa’s hand atop the table, he looked to the three of them.

“I…there’s actually a reason why I stopped here. I know you guys wanted to find Sunggyu’s Possible, and don’t worry, we’ll help…but we have a question.”

Howon had nodded along and answered. “Sure, go for it.”

Dongbae smiled at him and turned to Minhwa.

“You know we’re in love, right? Yeah? It’s just that…Minhwa and I had heard about a ‘deferral’. That we could delay our donations, just so we can spend time together, as lovers.”

Minhwa nodded. “Yes, we heard all about it at Sooman, how Woollim had these ‘deferrals’ and we wanted to meet who was in-charge, so we can prove it to them. That we are in love.”

Then the two had smiled at them, open and trusting and _so_ hopeful that they failed to realize how frozen and pale the three had become.

∞

There had been rumours. Of course, there always were. Woollim had been known back then, even among schools like her, as special. Woollim’s children are special. Woollim was special. Back in their school’s walls, it was easy for Myungsoo to lull himself into thinking it was just that — home. Something he’d known all his life, the moment he was born (the moment he was made) and even now, even with the water lapping at his feet and the wind nipping his skin, it was still the only home he’ll ever know for as long as he’ll ever live.

Woollim and Howon’s smug grin and Sunggyu’s disapproving frown.

Yet, to others, to Sooman and Yanghyun and the other schools, Woollim was secretive and privileged — Woollim produced best, and more often than not, Woollim’s donations were exemplary, were always sought.

There had been rumours. Rumours of couples that have found love, found love in each other and they’ve sought out reprieve — a deferral, they called it — from the guardians, the director, the people who looked over them since their conception. Yet, that was what they all were: just rumours.

No substance.

No truth.

Just rumours.

∞

Dongbae and Minhwa had cried that day. Tears promised to run down their cheeks, but Dongbae simply bit his lips tight and Minhwa had looked away, a staggering exhale in her wake. They spoke no more of the rumours.

Myungsoo had finally seen heartbreak in its ugly glory.

∞

“So…moving on, then?” Minhwa asked, after a moment, her voice still teetering on the edge of despair, as she smiles — incredibly fake — looking anywhere but at them.

Dongbae did the same, his eyes on the plate. “Yeah, you probably still want to catch Sunggyu’s possible, right?”

And without waiting for an answer, Dongbae had stood to pay for the food at the counter instead of calling for a check. Minhwa simply excused herself and all but ran to the car.

Sunggyu turned to Myungsoo, and he saw how pale the older had become. Howon, for all his sharpness, looked extremely uncomfortable after what had happened.

“Did…they were just rumours, right?” Sunggyu had asked Myungsoo that day, still in the booth, still reeling from what happened. His friend’s voice had taken a desperate tone, as if looking for affirmation that what he had said was right, that it wasn’t his fault Dongbae and Minhwa looked an inch away from breaking down.

“The teachers, they never told us about this. Not even Lee said anything about it,” Howon had spoken from the side, the sureness in his voice masking a subtle doubt but refusing to acknowledge it.

Myungsoo shrugged, “I don’t know. Maybe they were really just rumours.”

Sunggyu turned to Howon all a sudden. “I wasn’t wrong, was I?”

Howon nodded, grabbed Sunggyu’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Myungsoo looked away, staring at the grease of the egg yolk on the cheap diner chinaware. There it was again, that uncomfortable dropping of his stomach at the sight of Sunggyu and Howon together. Suddenly, the growing distance between them became more apparent to Myungsoo as the three of them sat there, Sunggyu and Howon whispering to one another, and Myungsoo waiting for Dongbae to finish paying for the food.

When Dongbae had finished, he seemed more composed, but he still refused to look into their eyes longer than necessary, just throwing them an overly-big smile and a “let’s go, we’ll be there ‘round two.”

They all pile into the car, and Myungsoo closes the back door as he squeezes himself last against Sunggyu and Howon. Minhwa wasn’t crying anymore, but she had gone quieter after that — taken to staring at the passing buildings as Dongbae drove through Seoul’s busy streets.

Back then, Myungsoo had been amazed at the towering skyscrapers, at the numerous figures blurring into colored shadows as the car speed past people and buildings. Steel and concrete and light shone even in the daylight, and televisions as big as houses played videos in the streets and Myungsoo, now, knows that they’re called “LCD screens” and that the videos had been “adverts”. It was all a surreal experience for him, having grown used to Woollim’s handsomely old woodwork, the endless green plains and the stormy grey skies. All this modernity had been strange and fearsome.

He had turned to Sunggyu and Howon, just needing someone to talk to about how amazing Seoul was and he sees Sunggyu and Howon admiring the same change, but Howon’s hand is on Sunggyu’s lap, squeezing his thigh and Sunggyu’s lips were almost kissing Howon’s ears and they were giggling at each other.

Myungsoo turned back to stare at the buildings again, but all he remembered seeing was the reflection of Sunggyu and Howon playing over and over on the car’s window.

∞

In the busy streets of Mapo-gu, they stop near an intersection. There are buildings everywhere, tall as the sky and infinite as Myungsoo follows the clouds’ reflections on the clear glass panes, swimming into the blue of the sky. His head is raised in wonder, but when Dongbae starts moving forward, he walks as well, trailing Sunggyu-hyung and Howon.

Multitude of voices surround him, yet they all seem to phase into background noise as Myungsoo tries to keep up with the group. He would have liked to remember the buildings around, the faces that bump into him, the colours and scents and sounds but even now, it would have been impossible. It was a kaleidoscope of the unknown, and like a newborn child, Myungsoo was too slow to remember, to take in everything.

They stop by another building — they all looked alike to him — and Dongbae shrugs, sorts of nods to it and turns to Sunggyu. He’s still not looking into Sunggyu’s eyes, into their eyes, but he does answer the question written across Sunggyu’s face.

“Saw him there. Dunno if he still is there, though. Might as well check it out.”

With that, Minhwa moves away to the other side of the road, gazing into tall skyscrapers endlessly into the distance. Dongbae follows her.

Sunggyu-hyung wasn’t moving. He was frozen, stock still. Howon raises a hand and grips his shoulder comfortingly. “You can do it, Gyu.”

Although the simple gesture turned Myungsoo’s insides to stone, he refused to let this weird bitterness spoil what could possibly the most important time of Sunggyu-hyung’s life. He walks up to Sunggyu’s other side and looks up into the older man’s face.

His lips are pale but in his eyes are a burning curiousity, fierce in its desire to answer only one question: _could it be?_

“Go, hyung,” Sunggyu turns to him, both looking and not looking at him. Myungsoo gives him the biggest, brightest smile he could manage. Sunggyu stares at him, and there’s a strange glow in his eyes. Myungsoo doesn’t understand it, like the way he doesn’t understand a lot of things right now, but he doesn’t lower his smile.

Right now, it was his hyung and not his feelings that were important.

“Go.” He says again, and Sunggyu nods. Howon smiles encouragingly.

Sunggyu closes the distance to the building, and Myungsoo and Howon follow him.

Sunggyu attaches himself to the glass walls, peers inside. The two follow suit.

It was an office of some kind, and the people inside wore suits. That itself wasn’t too far off the mark Dongbae had told them about Sunggyu-hyung’s Possible. They all looked serious, too intimidating and too cold for someone like Myungsoo to handle.

Then Sunggyu gasps, and Howon makes a surprising noise and Myungsoo follows their gaze. There is a man, their back to him, in a dark blue suit. He’s sitting in a chair, facing a desk but the shape, the outline, it all reminded Myungsoo of one person.

Sunggyu.

He feels, rather than hears, Sunggyu-hyung squeak in excitement as he basically jumps on the spot, his hand hitting the glass wall. There could possibly be no other way this man could not be Sunggyu, he even has the same hair color!

“Hyung, hyung.” Howon says excitedly, just as excited as Sunggyu. Myungsoo simply stares.

The people inside the office turn to them at the thud on the glass walls Sunggyu made, as it echoed. The man Sunggyu’s Possible is talking to looks up and sees all three of them looking in. He turns to the Possible and says something.

The Possible sits up and he starts to turn.

Myungsoo feels all three of them breathe in, a hairline away from breaking into frenzy.

Sunggyu’s Possible turns to look at them.

∞

It’s not Sunggyu.

∞

 

Sunggyu screams.

He screams and screams and screams into the metropolitan air.

Dongbae and Minhwa stare on, quiet in their observation.

Howon is trying in vain to calm Sunggyu down. He’s pleading with the man to keep himself together. Sunggyu screams and screams and he cries and cries.

Myungsoo cries with him, but it’s a cry that springs no tears. It’s a silent cry in his soul.

“You don’t get it, do you Howon?!” Sunggyu screams, fed up with Howon’s consoling. He pushes Howon away and his face is red and tears drip down his cheeks and he screams again. He points to the building where Sunggyu’s Possible — the one they all thought was real — is, too far to be clear. “People like them?! People in suits and in offices and in banks, people with actual lives?! People that are respected in society?! We’re not made from them! We can never be them! Do you know who we come from, Howon? Do you know, Myungsoo? We come from trash. We come from garbage. We come from people who are too low to be respected in society. Sluts and whores, murderers and criminals. That’s where we come from.”

Sunggyu falls to his knees and he wraps his arms around himself, still crying.

“We’re not people. We’re garbage.”

∞

The drive back to the Colonies is filled with a silence that promised never to disappear. It’s a silence that chills Myungsoo to the bone. When they’ve gone back, Sunggyu is the first to jump off the car and race up to his room — the room he now shares with Howon. Of course, Howon follows suit, still unaffected by the animosity Sunggyu was showing to everyone.

Dongbae and Minhwa follow suit, still as sullen and as down as they were when they had been told there was no such thing as a ‘deferral’.

Myungsoo follows, like he always does, and he wonders if this loneliness was a curse or a blessing — to be alone yet to know no false hope of ever being more than what he thought he could ever be. He was alone in this jealousy, in this fear of losing Sunggyu and Howon but in this loneliness, there were no false promises of forever, no dishonest words of a life beyond donating. He understands that it’s not a proper way to live, but after what he had seen and learned, he now begins to wonder if there ever was a proper way to live…or if life was even worth living at all.

∞

Five days later, Sunggyu breaks up with Howon. He screams at Howon to stop coddling, to stop being with him because it’s just the same as being with trash and he pushes the dining table so hard all the plates fall off and break, food scattered across the wooden floors.

Howon stares in shock.

The next morning, Sunggyu is gone. All that’s left of him is a sheet of paper.

He’s been registered for donating.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s been a year since he last saw Sunggyu and Howon. It’s been a year since that day in Seoul, since that day they thought they had found Sunggyu’s Possible. It’s been a year since Sunggyu disappeared from the colonies, having registered for donation.

It’s been a year since the day that sheet of paper fell from Howon’s hand as he stares unseeingly at the emptiness of the room he shares — shared — with Sunggyu.

It’s been a year since the day that Myungsoo packed his things and left right after.

It’s been a year, and Myungsoo had spent the last twelve months as a carer. It wasn’t an easy path – being a carer: life on the road, sleeping in hospitals and donation centers as he holds the hand of the donors. That’s what it means to be a carer: some would say it was a test; a preparation phase before being a donor. Being a carer means being there for the donors, taking care of them, being with them, looking after them because no one else would.

No matter how important the organs inside them were, no other medical personnel would be willing to treat them more than the organs they’re worth for.

It’s been a year, and Myungsoo steps out of the car. The wind is a little chilly, which is surprising considering the February wind and the slow coming of summer. He grabs his bag and locks the car, making his way into the hospital.

It’s a little one, compared to the previous one he’s been in a month ago. Then again, that month he was in Seoul. Here in Busan, in the quiet city by the sea, everything seems to move at a slower pace – as if Busan existed outside time.

He enters the hospital and some of the medical staff turn and look at him; they look at his face and then they see the grey suit he wears and they see the Woollim pin on it – a lemniscate, of all things – and they look away as if he never entered at all.

He’s used to this.

Carers and donors; so important, but only for what they could provide; not for what they are.

Myungsoo looks down – it’s always better to look down, better to not look people in the eye because he’s not like them, he never was and he never will be. He has no home, he has no family. He’s just a warm bag, full of blood – waiting for its time to be cut open and transplanted.

He hurries to the elevator and enters it, punching in the floor number that has been his life for the past few weeks. It’s the surgical ward; with a cordoned-off section for people like them.

He exits the elevator and sees the double doors leading to that section, a “Authorized Personnel Only” sign plastered over it. Of course, they weren’t supposed to be seen.

God forbid the organs came from them – from beings with lives, with hearts, with souls.

In the ward is one sole occupant, amidst the several beds lined up. The green blanket is covered up to his chin, an IV line leading from his arm to the saline bag above. It’s quiet, except for the subtle beeping of the heart monitor and the dulled voices of the nurses and doctors outside.

Myungsoo walks to the gurney, and he places his bag on the seat next to it. The man on the bed opens his eyes to look at him. Dark circles gather underneath his eyes, his skin is an unhealthy pallor of yellow and his lips are chapped.

Myungsoo smiles and gently fixes his hair with his hand, feeling the cold skin underneath his fingertips.

“Hyung.” Moonsoo says, and his voice is but a whisper but Myungsoo hears it anyway.

“Hi.” He answers, smiling.

Moonsoo is two years younger than Myungsoo, but the boy looks infinitely older with all the donations he’s done. A lot of the nurses they’ve met, at least the ones who were willing to actually talk to them, keep on saying they look too alike – like they’re actual brothers. Myungsoo remembers Moonsoo’s smile at this, just a day after his first donation (it was his right kidney) and he remembers the shine in Moonsoo’s eyes as he looks at Myungsoo.

The Moonsoo back then looked so much younger than this boy right now; just a feather away from skin and bones.

His donation tomorrow will be his third.

Myungsoo forces his smile now – not a lot of donors make it past their third donation.

“I brought you something.” Myungsoo says, smiling at the way Moonsoo is blinking at him in bleary confusion. He pulls his hand back and sits on the chair, opening the bag he brought with him.

He pulls out a camera – it’s an older one, not as up-to-date as what most photographers use nowadays, but it does its job and Myungsoo likes it enough to keep it. He doesn’t make much, just gets enough to get by and it’s not like he could afford to buy the newer ones anyway.

Moonsoo looks at the camera blankly while Myungsoo powers it on. He goes to the gallery and he opens a photo. Slowly, he settles the camera into Moonsoo’s free hand, the screen glowing.

Moonsoo’s hand is shaking as he holds the camera; it’s not because of the camera, Myungsoo knows it’s because the boy barely has the strength to even stay awake now.

The boy makes a sound and Myungsoo settles his head on the space next to Moonsoo’s, looking at the picture of the reddish-brown bird he managed to capture during one of his trips last week, when he drove past Jeonju and saw it sitting pristinely on a nearby gate.

“What…?” Moonsoo asks.

“Don’t you remember? You wanted to see what a red turtle dove looks like. You told me last week.”

Moonsoo makes a negating sound – it’s almost pitiful but there’s a certain vulnerability to it and it drives a stake into Myungsoo’s chest. The camera wavers again and Myungsoo feels the boy’s body shake. He is silent, even when the touch of hot tears drip into his face as Moonsoo silently cries.

Myungsoo aims to pull the camera away but Moonsoo shakes his head, so he settles with holding it for the boy; a warm hand gripping a much colder, a much younger one. He settles his head back next to Moonsoo and quietly sings a melody from a song he heard on the radio during the drive to the hospital.

The ward is quiet except for the sniffles of a boy too young for a life he was not given a choice to live in, save for Myungsoo and his almost singing, wondering if there really was a God out there and if He would be happy with what He’s seeing.

If a God out there would be cruel enough to let this happen.

∞

The waiting area is cold. It’s cold, deathly cold but Myungsoo feels colder. It’s not the breeze of the air condition that chills him. It’s not the cold of the steel bench he’s sitting on.

He stares, unseeingly at the wall before him, Moonsoo’s wrist-tag in one hand, and his camera in the other; the screen displaying the amateurish photo of a red turtle dove.

Moonsoo had completed.

∞

He drives.

It’s three-eighteen in the morning, it’s dark and the streets are empty and Myungsoo drives. He drives and drives, but he doesn’t see the streets.

All he sees are the shining lights in Moonsoo’s eyes.

He drives and drives, and the city buildings fade into trees and into shallow forests. The car is silent, and the radio is off and the sky is slowly fading from a dark blue to an orange one.

The sun is rising.

Myungsoo drives and drives, and for just one moment, he turns his eyes to the forests beyond his window and he swears he could almost see Woollim – see its beige walls, sees its tall gates.

For one moment, he could almost see Mr. Nam’s frame as he chases after a pair of errant boys.

For one moment, he could almost hear Sunggyu and Howon’s laughter.

∞

He returns to the hospital at eight in the evening. He hasn’t eaten dinner; he doesn’t feel like it.

Myungsoo makes his way to counter and when the nurse sees the pin on his jacket, she leaves and calls for someone. Another nurse, an older woman, approaches him with a set of papers and a pen. Myungsoo finds it funny how he already knows what’s written on it.

“Just affix your signature here and here. We’ll be handling the delivery of the body; all you have to do is drop those at the surgical ward.” The nurse says, robotically and almost apathetically – like a boy hadn’t died, like Moonsoo hadn’t died.

Of course, why would they? People like Myungsoo never mattered to them.

They weren’t people. They were garbage.

He grabs the documents, and before he signs, he reads.

All that was left of Moonsoo was just his age, his weight, his height and his cause of death. Cardiac arrest.

Cardiac arrest at the tender age of seventeen.

Myungsoo feels his lips quirk into a sardonic smirk. Of course, it had to be cardiac arrest. It had to be.

Moonsoo’s last donation was his heart.

He grabs the pen and signs his name on the bottom. He signs the next page and the next and the next and before he knows it, it’s official. Moonsoo had completed: three donations.

The destiny of a seventeen-year old boy’s life.

Like pigs raised for the slaughter.

Myungsoo grabs the documents, hands one copy to the nurse and she reviews it once and leaves. He puts them in the bag, setting it on top of the counter.

He just needs to breathe – at least once. He stays there for a moment, just breathing, and breathing. One more donor completing under his belt. Moonsoo was the fourth.

He straightens back up and is halfway out of the hospital when he realizes that he still has the pen in his hand. He contemplates returning it, wondering if he should give it back and decides that he has nowhere to be, not now anyway.

He walks back to the counter and leaves the pen. He’s about to turn when he catches sight of a computer monitor by the corner of the station.

There’s a photo, an ID, on the screen. He’s too far to read the words next to the photo but the small eyes are familiar; that nose and those lips.

The same nurse, the older woman, is writing by her desk and Myungsoo leans over the counter.

“Excuse me, is…is that a new donor coming in?” He asks, a tad hopeful – a tad terrified. But he has to know. He has to know or else he’ll never rest, never let it go.

The nurse looks up at him, distracted, before turning to the screen Myungsoo was pointing to.

“Yup. Coming in this Friday. Second donation is next week, if his recipient is stable.”

Myungsoo feels his fingernails biting into his own palm as his fists tighten to uncomfortable degrees. “Does—does he have a carer?”

“Nope. Why? You want to take him up?”

Myungsoo nods before he could even think about it. The nurse stands and goes to the screen monitor, and she types something on the keyboard; printing out a single page of paper.

She hands it to Myungsoo, along with a pen and she points to a line for his signature before going back to her desk to resume her work.

He looks at the photo printed on to the paper. It’s been a year.

It’s been a year since he last seen Sunggyu-hyung’s face.

∞

Myungsoo spends the next few days waiting for Friday in a dingy-looking motel near the hospital. He had sent word to the foundation about his new donor and he’s a little thankful there were no protests from their end about his sudden decision take a new donor without consulting them first. Regardless, even if they did say something, it’s not like Myungsoo would care.

Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday are all spent recalling how Sunggyu looked; how his voice sounded, how he smelled, how his laughter sounded so smooth, like honey and butter. Of course, remembering Sunggyu meant remembering Howon and Myungsoo is a little ashamed to say that he has no idea where Howon is, if he’s started donating and if he’s…

Myungsoo shakes his head and perishes the thought. He doesn’t want to think about that now, not yet, not when the wound is still fresh.

All he wants right now is to see Sunggyu-hyung.

All he wants right now is to come back to that time before reality.

∞

The first words Sunggyu says the moment he lays his eyes on Myungsoo as he enters the ward isn’t “Who are you?” or “do I know you?”, or even “Myungsoo, is that you?”

It’s a faint, almost silent — a simple query that cut into Myungsoo like a gilded dagger: “Is someone there?”

Myungsoo remains rooted in place, one hand on the cold door knob, the other holding a plastic bag full of oranges (Sunggyu’s favourite; he remembers), eyes on the man that used to be a part of him as much as he was a part of the other.

Sunggyu had…changed. The once boyish, full features had died away; gaunt, pale cheeks greeted him. His pale skin, Myungsoo remembers it like luminescent moonlight, is now pallid and queasy-looking. His lips are chapped, and bloodied in some areas and Sunggyu-hyung looked like a hundred years had taken its toll on him — leaving him weary and wretched.

But what felt like a punch to the gut was Sunggyu’s eyes…or lack of them.

He remembers beautiful brown eyes, like maple in the right frame of light. He remembers extremely expressive eyes — remembers the way they flare up in anger or brighten in joy. He remembers affection and irritation and exhaustion clouding them more than once, and he remembers the way those brown eyes looked so content when Howon was nearby.

What greets him are two empty sockets, the pinkness of the skin underneath covered by drooping eyelids.

Sunggyu is looking into his direction and he is slowly sitting up from the bed, his frame a little tense. His voice is louder this time. “Is—is someone there? Nurse?”

“Y-yes. Yes, there is.” A voice answers, devoid of emotion and cold-sounding. It takes Myungsoo a moment to realize it’s his own.

Sunggyu seems to shrink into himself at the coldness of the response and he slowly bows his head to look at his hands, an IV line leading up to a saline bag.

“Oh. Um. Who…who are you?”

Myungsoo doesn’t answer. He slowly makes his way to the gurney — and like a cruel joke of fate, he realizes it’s the same bed that Moonsoo had occupied not so long ago (four days). He bites his lips at the thought of Moonsoo as he settles on the chair, that same chair.

Everything was like God’s personal joke. No, he was God’s personal joke.

He takes another moment to just look at Sunggyu-hyung. A year ago he was this vibrant man, so full of life and love, even when Myungsoo had looked at him with jealousy from the silent shadows. A year ago Sunggyu-hyung shone with so much radiance, so much _zest_   - it was impossible not to be pulled along with the waves.

A year could do so much. It was almost like looking at a skin-covered skeleton wearing his friend’s face.

“It’s me. It’s me, hyung.” He says, and he can’t help the hitch in his voice as Sunggyu slowly turns to him, brows furrowed in confusion. The pale pink and white of his empty eyesockets are all that greets Myungsoo’s eyes and it’s all he can do not to wrap the man in his arms.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s me, hyung. Myungsoo, remember? Nightingale?”

Sunggyu’s mouth twitch at the word. “Nightingale?”

 

∞

They were ten. It was winter, and the fields outside Woollim were cold to the bone. The walls were warm, though, as the students kept to the inside. Myungsoo, Sunggyu and Howon were in the dormitories, cramped on Howon’s bed.

Myungsoo was in his pyjamas, reading from a book. Sunggyu was quietly singing to himself as he daydreams, his form lupine on the bed, Howon against his back as the other busied himself with Mr. Lee’s homework.

Myungsoo comes across a word in his book and he turns to Sunggyu. “What’s a nightingale?”

Sunggyu stops his singing, and he looks at Myungsoo in confusion. “What?”

“Nightingale. What is it?”

Sunggyu shrugs. “Some bird, I think.”

Howon turns to him. “It is. Nightingales sing at night, that’s why they’re called nightingales.”

Myungsoo’s eyebrows rise. “Really? That’s cool.”

Howon nods. “Yeah. I can hear them sometimes when I wake up too early. They sound so pretty when they sing…unlike Sunggyu-hyung.”

A kick to Howon’s side has the boy laughing to himself as Sunggyu glares at him. “Jerk.”

Howon’s still laughing to himself at his joke (no matter how bad it is). “Yeah. You could even say Sunggyu’s a nightingale. The worst one though, ha!”

Sunggyu kicks Howon again and the two end up fighting — Myungsoo rolls his eyes at this, already expecting it the moment Howon made his joke— fists landing marks on skin until the commotion brings Mr. Nam to dormitories and he sends both of them to detention.

∞

“Yes, hyung. Remember? Remember me? Remember H—Howon?”

Sunggyu stills, silent as stone. Slowly, as if it physically hurt him to do it, Sunggyu raises his hands and Myungsoo looks on in sadness as he sees bony wrists and too-thin fingers reach forward, until the tips are tracing his cheeks.

Sunggyu murmurs. “May I?”

Myungsoo answers with a yes and he closes his eyes as Sunggyu’s hands grasp his face in them, feels the fingers tracing the planes of his ears, the roundness of his cheeks, the slope of his nose.

His eyes remain closed until he hears laughter. He opens to find Sunggyu laughing, but it’s not a happy laugh. It’s sad, almost, and his brows are furrowed in misery and though no tears run down from his empty eyes, Sunggyu cries and laughs as he holds on to Myungsoo’s face for dear life.

“It’s me, hyung. It’s me.”

 

 

A hand idly traces his eyelids, and sigh dipped in nostalgia. “You always were the most good-looking out of us.”

∞

“How are you?” Sunggyu asks. He’s back on his bed now, resting. Sometimes, sitting up gets him so unbelievably tired that he can only do it for a few minutes. His first donation had been a big one, and it took such a great toll on Sunggyu that he was left to recuperate for months. Two eyes, a large part of his liver and a metre of his intestine were taken during his first donation – it was even a miracle he was alive at this point.

“I’m doing okay. Did a lot of driving, a lot of travelling. It’s been okay.” Myungsoo answers, feeding Sunggyu a slice of orange. The older spends a moment silently chewing, one hand listlessly tapping on the bed, the other holding on to Myungsoo’s.

“Was it hard, being by yourself?” The man asks and Myungsoo shakes his head before he realized what he was doing. He clears his throat. “A little. It was hard to deal with at first, but you get used to it, being on the road and never staying in one place for more than a few days at most. I felt like a nomad, actually.”

Sunggyu chuckles tiredly. “Must be nice. Wish I could have done that first.”

First. Sunggyu was the first of them; he was the first to sign up for donating. Myungsoo recalls, Myungsoo remembers.

“What’re you doing here, though? Is your donor here?” Sunggyu asks after a moment. At this, Myungsoo holds his hand tighter.

“I am. I’m your carer, hyung. I took over for you.”

“Oh. Don’t think I can handle it alone?”

“It’s not that, hyung. I missed you.”

Sunggyu smiles, his fingers tightening around Myungsoo’s. “Me too, ‘Soo. Me too.”

Myungsoo rests his head against Sunggyu’s arm, his nose tickling the skin against it.

It all felt surreal. Even after a year of doing this, seeing Sunggyu had brought back so many feelings he had kept hidden, kept under in chains. It was like he was fifteen again, realizing the way his heart beat faster when Sunggyu hugged him or when Howon puts his arm around his shoulders wasn’t normal, wasn’t friendship – was more than that.

It’s not until he feels Sunggyu’s fingers in his hair that he realizes there are tears tracking down his cheeks. He blinks them away, and he quietly wipes them across Sunggyu’s pillow.

“What are you thinking?” The man asks.

Myungsoo’s voice is quiet. “Us. You, me…and Howon.”

Them.

The three of them.

Woollim. Thirteen years of age, green grass and dirt and the warm fire in the assembly fireplace. Childhood. Innocence.

“Home. I’m thinking of home.”

∞

It’s during the evening, after Myungsoo finishes helping Sunggyu with his dinner that Sunggyu tells him he knows where Howon is.

“I asked one of those reps, those guys who handles the billing for us. He wouldn’t say at first, but I got him to tell me that Howon’s in Daegu. He just finished his second donation this past Monday.”

“Really? How long has he been there?”

“A few months, actually. Heard that the people there took a liking to him, and he managed not to get moved around, the sly bastard.”

A sigh. It’s tinged with affection and a sliver of sadness.

“Hyung…do you think you can handle a roadtrip?”

∞

Myungsoo manages to convince the nurses and Sunggyu’s doctor that he wasn’t kidnapping Sunggyu, and that they’ll be back by nightfall. One of them brings up their whereabouts and Myungsoo simply says they’re going home.

∞

The drive to Daegu is plagued with cheesy rock-tunes as Sunggyu insists to have them played. Myungsoo relents, maybe even occasionally singing along. He doesn’t have to turn to see the smile on Sunggyu’s face as they continue to sing as loud as they can inside Myungsoo’s car.

Sunggyu used to sing so loudly, the whine in his voice his greatest asset. He sounds small, now. Quiet, his voice timid and tired but he sings regardless, and Myungsoo feels his eyes prick at the longing in Sunggyu’s voice.

He wants to close his eyes. He wants to close them because it hurts to look at reality straight in the face, and not see the faint traces of Woollim in the corners of his vision.

He could almost imagine that the last few years hadn’t happened.

He keeps them on the road, however, the warm sunlight and the seemingly never-ending cascade of trees and leaves painting across the car’s surface, Sunggyu’s voice a nightingale amidst the silence, singing along to Nell’s “Holding Onto Gravity”.

_The footfalls are strangely heavy._   
_I feel as if I sense_   
_the weight of the air._   
_As if the entirety of the_   
_world’s gravity sojourns in me._

∞

 

When the hospital comes into the horizon, Myungsoo feels the weight on his chest grow heavier. In the passenger seat next to him, Sunggyu is asleep – never being able to handle long bouts of lucidity now. His breathing is silent, but Myungsoo can hear him occasionally making a faint sound, almost a whine, like a chirp.

Sunggyu used to make that sound a lot back then, too.

There are a few vehicles in the open parking lot right before the hospital, and Myungsoo slows the car down to a halt. He doesn’t turn off the engine, though. Gripping the wheel in his hands tight, Myungsoo just looks and looks and sees nothing.

He doesn’t know what to expect. He had called ahead, informed them. The nurse that had taken his call told him Howon had been asleep, but that she’ll pitch it in for him. Myungsoo didn’t ask what had been taken from Howon during his donations.

He doesn’t want to know.

For this moment, he just wants to go back to that quiet dormitory, wearing his pyjamas and reading his book, asking what a nightingale was and Sunggyu and Howon fighting in front of him.

For a moment, he just wants to be okay.

The double doors open. Myungsoo looks up.

A figure is standing by the steps, draped in a grey hospital gown and pyjamas.

Slowly, Myungsoo unlocks the door and steps out. The sound of the lock wakes Sunggyu, but Myungsoo is too dazed to notice.

He quietly stares at the figure in the distance.

∞

Howon is running. He’s running and running and running until all that Myungsoo sees is the tan skin of his neck, the errant thread along the neckline of Howon’s gown.

He is cold, even though he is bathed in the afternoon sunlight, but he grows warm as he feels Howon’s arms around him and Myungsoo feels his heartbeat against his own.

All he sees is the almost visible walls of Woollim.

All he hears is the loud, boisterous laughter framed by sharp canines and thick eyebrows.

∞

When Howon sees Sunggyu, sees the empty eyes and that sad smile on his chapped lips, all he does is wrap his arms around the taller man until the ends of Sunggyu and the beginnings of Howon coalesce into one.

A year of heartbreak, a year of desperation. A year of so many hardships. A year of realizing that life was cruel. A year of dying.

For the first time since he’s ever thought of it, Myungsoo doesn’t feel jealous.

They’re all together again.

He hasn’t been home in a year.

∞

 

They’re on the road again, going back to Busan. The afternoon is slowly fading to evening, and the orange skies die to an ever-darkening blue. The roads are empty, the forests dark but Myungsoo doesn’t notice this as Howon laughs in the back of the car, as Sunggyu calls him out on his mean jokes, about how he should be treating people older than him with a little more respect. Myungsoo joins in, sides with Howon and Sunggyu looks at him in askance, imagines the glare in those empty eyes.

“I thought you were always on my side, you traitor.”

Sunggyu huffs and Howon reaches out to plant a kiss against Sunggyu’s cheek. Myungsoo doesn’t feel bothered. Not at all.

“I always was, hyung. Always was.”

And if Myungsoo’s answer was a little too honest, a little too desperate, both Howon and Sunggyu don’t call him out on it. If his answer was a little too sad, a little too hopeful, then they both don’t attempt to crack the façade of the fragile lie he’s made for himself.

For them.

For now.

∞

It’s almost nine in the evening by the time they reach Busan, but Myungsoo doesn’t drive to the hospital. He doesn’t take the right turn to the avenue. He takes a left, and then he takes another left.

Howon doesn’t notice this, as he’s busy feeding Sunggyu with the dinner Myungsoo packed beforehand.

He’s turn different routes, different paths as the buildings slowly disappear and the dark blue of the sea starts running alongside them.

Howon doesn’t ask questions when Myungsoo stops the car beside the empty beach. All he does is wipe Sunggyu’s chin and slaps Sunggyu’s thigh and tells him to get up.

“But I’m tired.”

“You big baby, c’mere.” Howon says, pretending to be annoyed. He gets out of the car and opens Sunggyu’s door. Myungsoo is already out and he can see, even in the darkness, the grin on Howon’s face.

 The two of them help Sunggyu out. Myungsoo doesn’t bother with the wheelchair he’s packed in the compartment. It’s just the three of them, the waves of the sea, the squawking of the birds and brightening stars above.

∞

They settle on a spot, not too far from the car but far enough to get their feet wet. The seawater is lapping against the hem of Myungsoo’s pants but he doesn’t care. Sunggyu is resting his head on his lap, one hand gripping Myungsoo’s knee, the other holding on to Howon’s fingers.

Sunggyu is awake, Myungsoo knows, and the way he breathes in deep as the wind picks up and the saltiness in the air carries itself back to them, the seawater growing slightly higher, the squawking growing fainter. It’s like Sunggyu just wants to breathe all this in, breathe them deep inside until it’s impossible to take them out ever again.

Myungsoo looks from him to Howon, and he sees the man stare at him back, a smile on his lips. Myungsoo smiles back, his eyes mapping the thick eyebrows, the sharp canines and he reaches out to feel Howon’s bald head.

His fingers come across smooth skin tinged with growing hair, until they feel ridges of an incision half-away from healing. Myungsoo doesn’t think about what it is, even when he knows deep inside.

For this moment, there’s no one but the three of them.

For this moment, Myungsoo holds on to the gravity of his memories – to the belief that this is long enough.

That this is enough.

∞

Myungsoo leans down and presses his lips against Sunggyu’s cheek, feels the man smile. Howon reaches to wrap an arm around Myungsoo and, Myungsoo’s not sure if he really did feel it, but Howon pulls them a little tighter into his embrace.

The wind has gone chilly, the birds all but gone and sand dry around their toes but Myungsoo doesn’t feel it.

All he feels is the warmth of home.

∞

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you two.” Sunggyu breaks the silence, his head still resting against Myungsoo’s lap. Myungsoo knows his leg is numb at this point but he doesn’t really mind. He’ll trade eternity with this numbness if it meant the three of them together again.

“What is it?” Howon asks, his words breathed against Myungsoo’s neck. His fingers are idly toying with the strands of his hair and Myungsoo leans to rest his head against Howon’s shoulder.

Sunggyu hesitates, and with the way Myungsoo sees Sunggyu hesitate—

“I…when I left a year ago, I didn’t donate immediately.”

Howon nods. “Yeah, they prep you for it for like a month or so—“

“I know that, but that’s not what I meant.” Sunggyu’s quiet answer keeps Howon silent.

“Hyung?” Myungsoo asks, prods.

Sunggyu sighs again and he brings one hand up to curl against his cheeks. “I didn’t donate immediately. I put it off for two months.”

Confused, Myungsoo asks, “then what were you doing for the first two months?”

“I was looking for Mr. Lee.”

“Mr. Lee? You mean, Mr. Lee from Woollim?” Howon questions.

It’s the first time Myungsoo hears the word outside his head. It’s the first time Myungsoo’s heard the word in a long while.

“Yes. Do you know why I was looking for him?”

Silence.

“I wanted to know. I wanted to know if the rumors were true. I wanted to know if…if I could delay what was happening, if it was possible to be _me_ longer.”

Sunggyu reaches out to lay a hand on Howon’s leg. “I left because I wanted to know if it was possible for us to be together longer…if it was possible for us not to donate so soon.”

A hand on Myungsoo’s foot.

Myungsoo doesn’t see anything anymore, except for the image of Sunggyu’s skin glowing in the moonlight as it blurs, as he feels his eyes water, as he feels Howon press his nose against Myungsoo’s nape and feels the man shake with the gravity of Sunggyu’s words.

His hyung’s voice is pleading now, asking for them to understand. Asking for forgiveness for something he had done for all of them. It’s all Myungsoo could do as he feels the hot tears slip down his cheeks.

“I wanted to know if it was possible for us to be people, to have lives. If we were allowed to have forever.”

∞

The body goes into seizure, the heart monitor beeping loudly as the man on the operating table struggles to live, to survive. Hands are frantic as they try to grasp on to life, the man’s empty eyes are wide as his body fights to live, to not give up. His brain is static but his body remembers the sands of the beach, the seawater and the warmth of a loving kiss pressed against his cheek.

The nurses pay no mind to the pitiful, almost wretched desperation. They pack away his kidneys in an ice-box.

The shaking starts to slow down, the body lessening its tension.

The heart monitor’s beeping goes from frantic to static.

The surgeon pulls out a healthy heart out of the gaping cavity in the man’s chest and carefully places it into the bag held out by the nurse.

Flatline.

The surgeon doesn’t bother pulling away the tools from the cavity in the now-cold man’s chest. He pulls his gloves out and places them, along with his cap and on a nearby counter. He leaves the ward, the door closing on the empty room save for the lifeless man on the steel table.

On the twenty-third of February, Sunggyu completes.

∞

Ironically, Myungsoo doesn’t cry.

He doesn’t. He simply nods at the nurse, pulls the documents and signs his name. He’s not thinking about it, it’s all muscle memory.

He affixes his signature, eyes blankly skimming a “Kim Sunggyu”, then his cause of death, his age, his weight, his height. He’s not _seeing_ the words or what they mean. It’s all muscle memory, really.

What he’s seeing is the smile on Sunggyu-hyung’s face as he turns to smile at Myungsoo from across the car seat, on a drive during a sunny day in February, singing with Kim Jongwan to Nell’s “Holding On To Gravity”.

∞

Ironically, it’s Howon who cries.

Ironically, it’s Howon who cries and cries and cries and cries.

He’s shaking and he’s crying and he’s screaming.

Myungsoo drives him out to the beach they went with Sunggyu-hyung just a few days ago, and Howon is screaming. He runs to the sea and he raises his arms and he flails and strikes the waves as he screams, Myungsoo just staring onwards.

Howon screams, and it sounds like betrayal, like desperation, like the cruel joke of life, and he screams until he starts coughing and coughing. He’s down on his knees and the seawater is relentless as it strikes him back, leaving him wet and cold.

Myungsoo moves forward and before Howon could rise to strike some more, Myungsoo pulls Howon back.

He doesn’t make a sound as Howon tries to fight back, as Howon cries and rages and hits any part of Myungsoo that he could.

Myungsoo takes it all in.

“He’s gone, hyung.” He whispers, amidst the screaming and the cursing.

“He’s gone.”

∞

Time passes like a stone in zero gravity after Sunggyu’s completion. Howon began to curl into himself in the coming days, and Myungsoo tries to hold on to that boy with the silver tongue and the sharp smile.

Days are now spent in Howon’s hospital, waiting for the day that his third donation comes. Days are now spent on Howon’s bed, arms around each other as Howon refuses to pull himself away from Myungsoo, as he resolutely settles his head against Myungsoo’s chest and refuses to release the man from his arms.

Myungsoo asks him why, one day.

Howon is quiet, his fingers idly tracing shapes into the skin under Myungsoo’s shirt.

“I’m afraid.”

“Of completing?”

“No.”

Silence, as Myungsoo waits for Howon to give up on his fragile lie. The man sighs.

“Yes, but not because of completing.”

“What are you afraid of, then?”

“Forgetting.”

Myungsoo holds him closer. “Forgetting what?”

“How your heart sounds when it beats; how your voice sounds when you laugh; how your eyes crinkle when you smile. How Sunggyu looked like, how his eyes were the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, how his singing always puts me to sleep. I’m afraid that I’ll forget them all one day, that I’ll forget you.”

Howon pulls his head away to look up at Myungsoo, and he takes in the hair starting to grow back, the thick eyebrows, the dark eyes and the sharpness of his canines.

“I’m afraid that one day I’ll forget.”

He ducks his head and his nose traces Howon’s, breathing in his scent. “I won’t let you, then.”

∞

They have sex.

Myungsoo doesn’t know the thoughts going through Howon’s head as they kiss, as they lie against each other, skin to skin. He doesn’t know if Howon is thinking about him as Myungsoo traces his collarbones; he doesn’t know if Howon is thinking about him as he grasps Myungsoo’s thighs. He doesn’t know if Howon is thinking about him as Myungsoo pushes himself inside Howon.

He doesn’t know if Howon is thinking about him in this moment, or if he’s thinking about Sunggyu.

The funny thing is, Myungsoo doesn’t care.

He doesn’t mind.

He _can’t_ mind, not when he’s thinking of both Sunggyu and Howon as he traces the inside of Howon’s mouth. Not when he’s thinking of Sunggyu and Howon as they both climax.

He doesn’t know if it’s weird, if it’s unnatural or if it’s abnormal for him to think of Sunggyu and Howon when he’s having sex with just one of them.

But he realizes that he will never be normal, and he really doesn’t mind anymore.

Howon is asleep moments after it’s over, and Myungsoo can almost see the faint tracks of tears down his cheeks. He kisses them away and feels Howon turning to him in his sleep.

Myungsoo doesn’t want to forget this, either.

∞

The waters were receding, and the sand trails in their wake. A cold breeze sweeps through the plains, and Myungsoo’s eyes sting. He blinks, brings a hand to rub the itch away. In the distance, the cackling of ducks carries over the ebb and flow of the sea. There is salt in the wind, and it caresses his skin.

He feels dry — a little sweaty, a little uncomfortable but he doesn’t really dwell much over it. For some reason, something he couldn’t really put his mind to, it feels wonderful — the dryness. He’s always been a neat person, found it refreshing to be clean of sweat and smell, but the saltiness pulls a sense of warmth in him, warmth he hasn’t felt in a really long time.

The sound of the ducks, the rolling of the waves against the banks, the feel of the seawater curling around his toes, the smoothness of the sand under his feet, the saltiness in the air.

Myungsoo closes his eyes.

He starts to see it now. He sees the once-beige façade, weathered by rain and hail. The sea is more distant, and the spaces between are covered with the endless green of the plains. The ducks’ cries dull as the chatter of prepubescent children fill the air.

This past year, a lot of things had happened to Myungsoo. He had seen so much, felt so much, done so much it almost seemed like he was living an entirely different life. A life without a destiny on the operating table; a life without a destiny in a sheet of paper, a sack of organs and the inevitable coming of age, his age, his time.

Howon completes during his third donation. There is no funeral, there never was. It was the same with Sunggyu. Their remains will be given to the medical community to study, to dissect, and to prod— so that what they can learn will be made to help society. It’s their destiny. In a way, he should be proud. He would be helping a lot of people; and all it took was the entirety of his existence.

He opens his eyes as the green seawater meets his gaze, and the wind sweeps his hair into different directions. Cars speed past behind him on the street, and he doesn’t really mind if they think he’s weird for standing knee deep into the sea, gazing into the past.

He raises his hand and opens his fist, and he watches as the wind carries the sheet of paper — it’s his sheet of paper, calling for him to begin his donation — into the air and into nothingness.

For some reason, he almost feels happy that he’s about to start donating. A year spent on the road, a year spent watching his friends and loved ones complete.

It’s almost like they’re calling him now — calling him home, calling him to completion.

He smiles. He can almost see their faces now, sees their wide happy grins.

And Myungsoo thinks — that perhaps, all along, they’ve never really understood what they lived through, or felt as if they’ve had enough time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? These past few months have been the most eventful ones in my life: work, adulthood, my grandfather's death. Now, I'm not saying this just to get your pity because I'm not. I'm just saying is that of all that has happened, I guess it finally made me realize how inevitably short life is -- and that we will never have enough time to do the things we want and be with the people we love. I guess that's what I wanted to leave with this work, to value the time you have right now because who knows, what tomorrow may bring? Another day or none.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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